On page 351, it is mentioned that it takes 'a person' (so not essence or an reincarnational self) about 70 years before reincarnating.

Now I am lost. As I understand from previous pages, that person will never reincarnate. … So, there will never be another Jantine.

SHEPHERD:

Right. By "a person," i didn't mean the personality of Jantine, but the whole package of self. Sorry that was unclear. I was trying to be conversational. I could have also said essence or astral self. Essence decides on incarnations, but they spring from the astral self.

STUDENT:

Then the next question is: why would Robert wait 70 years (to reincarnate if the next personality) is going to work on completely different issues and karmas? I see no point in such a long wait in such case.

SHEPHERD:

Essence can be ready much sooner if the next lifetime isn't based on the previous one that is still being processed, but there is also the matter of whether an appropriate body is available. With the population explosion today, that's not a big problem, but there have been fewer available bodies in the past.

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STUDENT:

On the Astral Plane time is a unified function so past and future are in one place in one loop of energy? Hence I'm suggesting that 'waiting for seventy years' is an imperfect sentient explanation of a concept that is beyond our grasp? Seventy years in the past and seventy years in the future are both accessible to Essence in one and the same flow of energy?

SHEPHERD, from "Journey of Your Soul":

From page 45, the subchapter "Accuracy and Self-Validation" in Chapter 1, "The Nature of Channeling":

We experience time rigidly on the physical plane because our bodies need to sleep at regular intervals and we adhere to work and meal schedules, all based on the Earth’s physical rotation around the sun. Our culture feels particularly pressed for time and also tends to demand instant gratification. In some cultures people feel that they have all the time in the world, so they might define the word "soon" more broadly than we do. Those without physical bodies experience time more fluidly still.

From page 69:

Time is experienced rigidly on the physical plane, fluidly on the astral, and even more tenuously on the causal. (It doesn’t exist at all on the three abstract planes.) Although I have been channeling Michael since 1986, they don’t track our relationship in years, since they don’t have them; years are a physical phenomenon. They look at it causally—as an intellectual progression.

From page 373:

In "Messages from Michael," Michael said that the essence is the intrinsic core of the soul. Michael through me has stated that when speaking of essence, they mainly mean the abstract aspects of self resonating with the three cardinal planes, which are beyond time and space. These could be called our mental, messianic, and buddhaic selves. They can be contrasted with the concrete aspects of self, those that resonate with the ordinal planes and are within the realms of time and space to some degree. These could be called our physical, astral, and causal selves.

SHEPHERD:

My impression is that we do experience a version of time on the astral plane, a more fluid one that isn't tied to planetary movements. Reincarnating souls can bend time. In "JOYS," I write about how it's possible to incarnate out of chronological order, in terms of physical time, but that's not the norm. Pure essence doesn't experience time at all, but that's not the part of self that directly incarnates. Since the astral plane is adjacent to the physical and is directly involved in it, physical plane time, or at least its chronological order, has some influence. Seventy physical plane years would not necessarily feel like seventy years to those between lives. Time for them is malleable and can be compressed or expanded, depending on the density of their experience. However, if nonphysical beings need to engage at a certain point on the physical timeline, physical time is relevant.

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BARBARA:

Shepherd mentioned the 70 years as an "average" and that it is also an individual thing. Sarah Chambers channeled it as 200 years; others have said it might average 100 years.

SHEPHERD, from "Journey of Your Soul":

From page 351 of "Journey of Your Soul," the subchapter "Between Lifetimes" in Chapter 26, "Reincarnation":

I channeled that, on average, a person waits about seventy years after death before reincarnating. However, Sarah Chambers channeled the number as being about two hundred. Through me, Michael was probably referring to more recent times, when the growing population has created more opportunities for incarnation. Perhaps over the entire span of one’s physical-plane cycle, two hundred has been the average.

Whatever the case, the length of time between lifetimes varies considerably from person to person and depends on the particular circumstances. Generally, younger souls reincarnate more quickly, whereas older souls tend to take more time setting up their lifetimes—they avoid repeating what they have already done and seek the particular circumstances needed to repay karmas, complete monads, and otherwise grow. Also, older souls become increasingly comfortable with the astral interval and its fluidity, whereas younger souls can be threatened by it and often can’t wait to get back into the structure of the physical plane. (Younger souls, like children, need more structure.) Still, it is a good idea to leave adequate time to review the past life, rest and heal from it if necessary, and prepare for the next one.

What I "KNOW" is indescribable for me.... it is essence connection, my ownconnection with essence, and the recognition of that connection in andbetween or with others... outside of that very tiny little bit (which isexquisite) all else is subject to change... so I invest little, I sit backand watch the show - like watching a great movie where it all parts get tiedtogether at the end.

What I think is: what shows up on this plane is periodic essence expression(truth) wrapped up in personality (a grab bag of sorts) - a nano expressionof the whole on our best essence connect day.... I don't think essence haspreference, personality is all about preference, after all it is a plane ofchoices and consequence.... it's hard enough making a choice when one cansee potential consequence... just think if we didn't have preference tosuade us.... geez- stucksville.

I'm with you! "D" is the one that fits for me, also. I can count been at least two times (and perhaps more) when Essence nearly killed me with an ailment that was really only meant to get my attention. Of course, there have been several times when I suspect that essence played a very material part in saving my life, so I figure that the balance is at least even, if not somewhat positive. It is possible, however, that those fragments with a relatively low number of lives (less than 100) would have a quite different perspective.

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Hmmm, this seems like you contradict yourself, most uncharacteristic of you! If essence doesn't give a flip (as in "D") then essence wouldn't be serving you up with lessons to learn from, or saving your life.

I'd say essence does not want to be bored, for one, and what is boring is excessive repetition of ungrowthful patterns that it already has had its fill of. At some point essence also wants to avoid karma formation; this will be after it has gotten bored with the blood and guts and pain.

All the best, Ed

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I'm sure the rat in the maze hasn't really considered thatthe maze builder has only left it one way to the goal,regardless of how much it hunts.

We can either find the essential absurdity of many ofthe belief systems that currently rule the planet bymaintaining our awareness and thinking about it, or wecan have our noses rubbed in it.

What's occured to me about GWB is that he's one of thepeople you call in when you want to wreck an organization.He's done it once in this lifetime, and that's one wayof looking at his karma with Osama binLadin.

John R

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Gloria, I loved this list :) And wish I could be madly creative in turn, but at the end of the day I'm a big old stick-in-the-mud joybear. I believe essence likes joy best. Mine certainly does, and I'm in growth so I get a lot of opportunity to learn from both pain and joy. I'll take Plan B for sure.